Here is one for the people who want something a bit different. Witchfire is not a mil-sim, it is not set in a war zone, and there are no other players anywhere near it. It is a brutally hard, strictly single-player dark-fantasy FPS that takes the extraction loop and welds it onto Souls-like combat, and it is made by a tiny nine person studio called The Astronauts, the team behind The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. It is one of the most distinctive games in this whole space, and barely anyone talks about it.
Let me explain how it actually plays, because the extraction angle is cleverer than it sounds. You head out into a perilous zone the game calls a Calamity. You fight, and killing enemies grows your powers and your arsenal. You scavenge loot as you go. Then comes the decision that makes it an extraction game: do you pull out now and bank what you have earned, or push deeper for greater rewards and risk losing the lot? Die, and you get a single one-time chance to reclaim what you dropped. It is the same tense risk-versus-greed loop I love in the bigger extraction shooters, just wrapped in gothic horror and built entirely for one player.
The combat is the other half of the appeal. It is genuinely hard, in a deliberate, Souls-like way, built around a roguelite progression system the game calls Arcana. This is not a game you breeze through. It is a game you learn, run by run, getting a little further and a little stronger each time. The story is kept light in Early Access, with a fuller narrative planned for the full release, so right now it is all about the moment-to-moment challenge.
It is doing well, too, which it deserves. The big Reckoning update in December 2025 added the first melee weapons, new mini-bosses, a shooting range and bestiary, and it landed alongside the game crossing half a million sales. On Steam it sits at Very Positive, with well over ninety percent of thousands of reviews positive. For a nine person team making a hard, single-player niche game, that is a brilliant result.
A bit of honesty on where it is at. Witchfire is still in Early Access, with 1.0 targeted for sometime in 2026 and at least one more major update expected first. So go in knowing it is not finished, and the full story and final polish are still to come. But what is there already is a complete, satisfying, properly challenging solo experience.
Why I am flagging it for you is simple. If you love the extraction loop but you are tired of the same modern military settings, or you just want a genuinely hard single-player game with a real identity, Witchfire is unlike anything else I have recommended. It scratches the same itch from a completely different angle.
For more solo PvE picks across the genre, I rounded up the best solo PvE extraction shooters to play right now, and the extraction shooter matcher will help you find your fit.
Witchfireextractionroguelitesolo PvEsingle player
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